Acid Pop
by Liebling
Summary: Why did Percy ostracize himself from the Weasley clan? Pre-OotP. There's more to it than you think...


Authors Note: It's 7:50 AM and no one in the house is up, I figure it's a great, 'quiet' time for writing. =)  
  
Disclaimer: Not mine.  
  
This is just my view of how the fight went about between Percy and his folks in pre- OotP.  
  
Percy isn't that logical in this one, but I mean think about it like this: you're at the end of your rope and you're overly emotional (you know when you get like that?) Exactly! Percy had to explode sooner or later.  
  
~*~  
  
"You want to drag me down to your level, don't you?" He said loudly, pacing the kitchen and even knocking down a blue china plate. "Poor and terribly uneducated, right?"  
  
"You filthy-" Arthur began.  
  
"Arthur!" Molly hissed as she pulled him back down in his seat.  
  
"Percy," she said. "You know we want what's best for you."  
  
"I want to work for the ministry," he stated, and it was more a fact than opinion.  
  
"That isn't what's best for you," Arthur said, shaking his head.  
  
The two glared at each other for a brief moment. Blue eyes met hazel.   
  
Arthur, for all of his life, could never quite shake off the look Percy gave him at that precise moment. It was the look of a warrior going into battle.  
  
"How would you know what's best for me?" He rounded on his Mother.   
  
"I'm your Mother," she said, sitting up a bit higher in her chair.  
  
"And a fine one you are," he said sarcastically. "If this is about you two trying to get me to not take my place in the Ministry then it'll never work. For once, I'm so-"  
  
He paused, and Molly noted the tears welling up in his crystal eyes. "I'm so happy," he finished.   
  
"Well that's just great," Arthur said, quite harshly.   
  
"You've never been happy for me!" He said and he dangerously sat back down in the chair and took a long sip of Ogden's fire whiskey.  
  
"That isn't true!" Molly said indignantly. "What about when you became prefect and head boy? What about when you gave Fred your last piece of Honeyduke's chocolate-"  
  
"Mother, I was seven."  
  
"Percy," she said, in much the same tone, "I love you."  
  
"You've got a funny definition of love then," he said.  
  
"No, Percy," his Father said, "I think you do."  
  
"No." Percy said and then his eyes glared at an odd-looking clock on the wall. "Love is being happy for someone when they're happy for themselves."  
  
"If you're happy then you don't need my vote of happiness now do you?" Arthur said.  
  
"No," he said honestly. "But I'd like it."  
  
"What do you think about Fudge?" Arthur said furiously. "Good guy?"  
  
"Yes," Percy said stiffly. "Actually, that is just what I think. The ministry isn't the devil, Father. How can you say it like that? The people wanted Cornelius, they got Cornelius. If you don't agree with all of their policies then go cry to them."  
  
Arthur flinched, slightly. "I voted for Garron."  
  
"Talk about pathetic."  
  
"Arthur, tell him what we mean," Molly urged.  
  
"Tell him what? That we love him? Oh yeah, Percy, by the way, in case we have never told you that we love you, we love you."  
  
"Not like that," Molly hissed.  
  
"He can say it however he pleases," Percy dismissed, his eyes cold. "It doesn't matter anyway. You know what this feels like?"  
  
"Like what?" Molly asked, concerned.  
  
"Like I've been lied to my whole life."  
  
Molly nodded towards his direction.  
  
"Do you know how terrible that feels?"  
  
"What do you mean?" Arthur inquired.  
  
"I mean that," Percy gritted his teeth and pulled on his scarlet cloak from the coat hook. "My whole life you two have been telling me you can 'be what you want to be' and to go for what I want. And I've always believed that I could do and be what I wanted. And I've found what I want, and now you two are taking back your word. I don't need you to be happy for me, actually, I could get by with you two being horrendously peeved at me. But I'd like you to be happy for me, I think it's the proper thing to do."  
  
"You don't know what you want," Arthur shot back at his ginger-haired son.  
  
"You'd think that wouldn't you?" Percy said loudly.  
  
"You know what I've always loved about you, Perce?" Arthur asked, and he didn't wait for an answer.  
  
"I've always loved how you have served no one." Molly looked aghast but urged him to continue.  
  
"And now you're thinking of 'serving' the Minister of Magic."  
  
"Better him than you," Percy shot back at him. "And I don't consider 'serving' to be taking notes at meetings."  
  
"Oh don't you?"  
  
"No," he said, and then more firmly, "No, I don't. I don't know what you have against Fudge but I'm sure it boils down to jealousy."  
  
"Oh of course," Arthur responded blandly as he rolled his eyes.  
  
"Percy," Molly said in a voice similar to 'oh dear', "tell your Father you love him."  
  
"No," Percy said. "I can't and I won't."  
  
"You can and you will!"  
  
"But I don't love him, Mother."  
  
"Oh yes you do," Mrs. Weasley finally getting annoyed at her third oldest son.  
  
Just then, a figure of a small red head in a nightdress began walking down the stairs.  
  
"Ginny," Percy said quietly.  
  
She stepped off the last stair and looked at her parents and brother in shock. "What's going on? I heard yelling...and I was scared..."  
  
"We're fine," Arthur said sharply.  
  
"You don't sound fine," Ginny said.  
  
"Go back to bed, okay love?" Percy said as she walked towards him.  
  
Ginny frowned. "Tell them what you told me."  
  
"No," Percy said. "That was between you and me."  
  
"I'll tell them," she said threateningly. "They need to hear it."  
  
"You wouldn't-"  
  
"I would and I will."  
  
"If you're going to be like that, I'll tell them about you and Michael-"  
  
"You wouldn't-"  
  
"I would and I will."  
  
"You're awful."  
  
"You're nothing better."  
  
"Tell," she said, pointing her wand at his heart.  
  
He yanked the wand out of her hand and pushed her into a chair next to him.  
  
Arthur looked momentarily confused and Molly simply took a sip of tea and looked at her son.  
  
"Fine," he said savagely. "I told Virginia-" she scowled "-that sometimes I felt like I was not very important in this family."  
  
Molly's mouth gaped and Ginny looked at her Mother.  
  
"I knew it, Arthur," she said.  
  
Arthur nodded gravely.   
  
"Maybe you did," he said to his wife who was now crying big tears.  
  
"I didn't mean to make you cry," he said quietly.  
  
She sniffed as Arthur threw an arm over her shoulders.  
  
"We're sorry," he said. "We have no favorites."  
  
"How can you say that?" Percy said, loud once more. "Fred and George and their little spat on the Gryffindor Quidditch team? Don't tell me, Father, that you didn't love going to those games and cheering on Gryffindor? I saw your eyes, pride, pure pride."  
  
"Oh this is just-"  
  
"-the truth," Percy finished.  
  
"Why are you telling all of this now?"  
  
"I've-" he ran a hand through his ginger hair "-lost it."  
  
"That's apparent."  
  
"And Ginny, she was always your little favorite as well."  
  
"Don't bring me into this!" The girl yelled at her brother. "Don't even!"  
  
"It's true, and you know it!"  
  
"No," she said and shook her head. "No, it's the Ogden's talking, you're just peeved because Mum and Dad don't like Fudge and you want to please them and you always have. This has nothing to do with their parenting skills."  
  
"How do you think I got this idea that I wanted to 'please' them?" He said, rounding on her.  
  
Ginny stayed firmly planted in her seat, "Tell."  
  
"I felt like the only way that I could get them to be proud of me is if I did whatever they asked and wanted. I hated being prefect; I hated it with a burning passion. And I hated being head boy too. But I did it. And you want to know why, Ginny? Because I knew it'd make Mum and Dad happy."  
  
"It did," she said simply as she tugged on a red lock of hair.  
  
"For a while," he conceded. "And then I realized that I wanted to go into the Ministry, and for once in my life what I WANTED to do outweighed the fact that they might NOT be happy with my choice."  
  
"Are you happy now, Percy?  
  
"Yes," he said through gritted teeth. "I've got to go, Penelope will expect me at her flat."  
  
"You're going to the flat, at this time of night?"  
  
"Yes. I can apparate you know."  
  
"Are you mad at us, Percy?" His Mother asked.  
  
"No," he said. "Just, I dunno. You know when you've eaten acid pops all day?"  
  
"Yes," Arthur said his voice sounded like he was choking.  
  
"And your stomach feels like it's about ready to explode, and it hurts like the Dicken's? And you always remember what it feels like, because it never goes away."  
  
He said this like it was more of a raw truth than a matter of opinion. Small tears came out of his eyes and he quickly wiped them away. He stood up, grabbed his old Hogwarts book bag and made his way to the jade door.  
  
And then he kissed Ginny on her freckled forehead and apparated not to Penelope's, but outside the Burrow.  
  
An exploding feeling in the pit of his stomach.  
  
~*~  
  
La Fin 


End file.
